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Rampaging Twitter ‘bots’ bred in Suffolk farmhouse

A wedding caterer sold access to fake accounts that have been used to spread scams and Russian propaganda

Robin Henry

February 18 2018, 12:01am, The Sunday Times

Jamie Robertson at his farmhouse. He says he never read the tweets

A British businessman is at the centre of a vast network of fake Twitter accounts used to spread anti-western propaganda and online scams.

In his day job Jamie Robertson, 37, manages a wedding catering firm that provides quaint ice-cream tricycles for couples in the home countries. His sideline, run from the back room of a rented farmhouse, caters for less ethical clientele.

For the past five years Robertson has provided clients with a means to inflate their influence on Twitter and distort public debate using an army of fake profiles — many of them automated accounts, known as “bots”, which are linked to Russian political propaganda.

At first he operated out of his mother’s council house near Frinton-on-Sea, Essex, but as his business grew he…

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